Sometimes it may feel as if you are powerless to affect the world around you. You feel swept along by events, often spinning out of control as if being carried through rapids and bounced between rocks. There may be things that you want to achieve or change in your life, but because of these rapids, you feel it’s impossible to do so. But as will be shown below, it’s quite possible to bring about desired changes in your life and the world if you take the time and, in some cases, the courage needed to identify the missing links in the chain of causes and effects that will get you to your goal.
There is a saying in Buddhism, “Because this is so, that is so. Because this is not so, that is not so.” This sums up the infinite chain of cause and effect, also known as dependent co-arising. Every phenomenon, whether a physical object or a mental construct, exists because of some collection of causes. If one or more of these causes are not present, then the effect does not come into being. A flower exists because of a seed dropped from its parent plant, perhaps a bird who carried the seed some distance, good soil, rain, sunlight, and sometimes careful tending by a gardener. If any of these causes are not present then the flower will not grow and bloom.
More practically, what this means is that it is possible that any phenomenon, be it a physical object, an event, or a thought pattern, may manifest if the necessary conditions are present. This has direct application to your life. If there is a situation that you see needs to be changed or brought into being then it is possible for that to happen. Perhaps this is a change in your life, a change in society, or a change in your own thinking. All that is required is to identify the missing conditions and help them to manifest first.